Sally never explained her decision. Resolutely guarded and a superb compartmentalizer, she kept her own counsel on this, as on so many other topics. In a world that has increasingly tweeted its innermost feelings to strangers, she protected most of hers. And buried others. Her sister, Bear Ride, wryly chalks it up to their mother’s Norwegian ancestry. “Tight-lipped,” she calls it. That was her DNA. But little hints make it clear that even Sally could bend to public pressure, yet another example of the shame and fear that an intolerant (or uninformed) society can inflict even on its heroes.

“I tend to hang out with mostly guys, and when I first got the show I was like: ‘How is it going to be with all these women?’ But these women are amazing, and people feel it when they’re in our space. I also love that the demographic of the audience is so vast — from my 81-year-old grandmother to little kids who really shouldn’t be watching it — and that it’s also brought me a whole new fan base in the LGBT community. They’re the best.”

Brittney Griner is one of the people I wish I could have created change for. If I had stayed and really pushed myself to find ways for the new me to serve the Baylor community, I would like to think a number of people on campus would have supported me. I often day dream about what would have happened if I had tried to rally my teammates, alumni, fans and the community around me by coming out and living openly at Baylor. We’ll never know what would have happened and what kind of pressures that could have applied to Baylor both socially and on an administrative level to create a more inclusive environment.

“I get all the love in the world,” she says in regards to the public reaction. “I don’t get a lot of negative feedback at all. … People admire me even more now. Because I am so open with who I am. I don’t hide behind anything and I’m not running from myself or trying to please this person. I’m a real person. I’m not a robot. I live my life for me and not for what others think. But it feels really good to know that people recognize real people and embrace it. Girls look up to me — even if they’re not in the LGBT community. They still admire who I am. I’m still a lady and I carry myself like a lady. My sexuality doesn’t define me. I still am Ariane — I just have a girlfriend.”

“I had a hard time just saying I’m a lesbian because a lot of the lesbians I knew were women who felt they never had any kind of connection with a man; they could never be with a man because it felt completely unnatural to them, and that wasn’t my story,” she says. “I have been with men, and it was never something like ‘Eww, this feels so unnatural.’”